Friday, March 25, 2011

Review: MLBN Comes to Viera

After a false start by the MLBN, my tivo has come in handy, as I was able to record a repeat, I finally got to watch the MLB Network's coverage of the Nationals edition of 30 Clubs in 30 Days.

- I figure that Strasburg and Harper will be prominent...

- Mitch Williams calls Jayson Werth the Face of the Franchise, um... really? Hazel Mae quickly corrects him, Zim is Face. Amsinger joins Team Mae. Williams retracts.

- "Ryan Zimmerman, consistently one of the most underrated players". Truth.

- "(Zimmerman) has not gotten his due"

- Werth's beard looks absolutely fantastic.

- Mae, "Has this contract changed people's opinions of you?" Werth, "Well, I guess you would have to ask other people" Beautiful.

- Projected Opening Day Lineup: Morgan/Ankiel 8. Desi 6. Zimmerman 3. Werth 9. LaRoche 3. Morse 7. Espi 4. Pudge 2. Livo 1. Gotta disagree with Ankiel first. Flop Zim and Werth. Though Mitch says stick Zim 3rd, LaRoche 4th, Werth 5th to split up the R-L-R.

- Says Pudge/Ramos should be split time 50/50. Gotta think it will be more around 35/65.

- Greg Amsinger says that Michael Morse will be the breakout player of 2011. Morse will make a trophy that Amsinger can award to him.

- Nats pitching stats from last year are atrocious. 26th in ERA. 28th in wins. 29th in Innings, K's, and Opponent AVG. Gross.

- Amsinger says that Jordan Zimmermann could be the breakout pitcher of 2011. Now, I haven't been paying as much attention to the other 30 Clubs/30 Days editions, does he throw this moniker out a lot? Who knows.

- Projected Rotation: Hernandez, Lannan, Marquis, Zimmermann, Gorzelanny. Hit the nail on the head with this one.

- Mitch - improved defense will help the pitchers out a ton.

- Nats bullpen pitched more innings than any other pen in baseball, but was 5th in bullpen ERA at 3.35. This would be a really nice thing to repeat.

- Lots of love for Balester - he needs to be in the pen, but he will be a victim of the option game.

- Burnett "Underrated because of where he has pitched; Pittsburgh and Washington"

- Prospects featured - Harper, Cole, Espinosa, Ramos, Norris, Solis, Perez, Marrero.

- Harper "Might have the best Left-Handed power of any player in the minors right now"

- All-time Expos/Nats lineup - Soriano LF 2006 - Vidro 2B 2000 - Vlad RF 2002 - Dunn 1B 2009 - Dawson CF 1983 - Zimmerman 3B 2009 - Carter C 1984 - Cabrera SS 2003 - Pedro P 1997.

- Dan Plesac - This is the year for Teddy to finally win one

- Word of the day is "smedium" - Definition from urbandictionary.com "refering to the size of an article of clothing where the article is clearly bought one size to small so as to display ones muscles". Um. Ok.

- Baseball Prospectus predicts a 71-91 season. Mitch Williams says the Nats will do much better than that and finish 3rd. Dan Plesac says that they will do better than 71 wins - that the Nats will have a major impact on the NL East.

- Overall, a much more in-depth version than Baseball Tonight, but thats to be expected considering the extra half-hour. Lots of good sequences, especially informative if you don't know too much about the Nats. Whose excited for Opening Day???

1 comment:

  1. ME!!! But when do you think we will be 1) Down to the final 25 and 2) Know our starting line-up?

    ReplyDelete